Heidelberg 2015 – scientific programme

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Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik

Q 62: Poster: Quantum Optics and Photonics III

Q 62.34: Poster

Thursday, March 26, 2015, 17:00–19:00, C/Foyer

Coherent interactions in a one-dimensional ultracold medium of extreme optical depth — •Frank Blatt, Thomas Halfmann, and Thorsten Peters — Institut für Angewandte Physik, Technische Universität Darmstadt, Hochschulstraße 6, 64289 Darmstadt, Germany

Engineering strong light-matter interactions at the single photon level is a key requirement for quantum information processing, or the generation of strongly correlated quantum light-matter systems. Typically, these light-matter interactions are maximized by tightly confining both matter and light. A promising method towards tight confinement is based on transferring laser-cooled atoms from a magneto-optical trap into a hollow-core photonic crystal fiber (HCPCF) and guiding the atoms in the device by a red-detuned optical dipole trap.

We here report on the preparation of such one-dimensional ultracold medium inside a HCPCF, reaching an effective optical depth (OD) of 1000 on an open transition. This OD corresponds to around 2.5*10^5 atoms loaded into the core with a loading efficiency of 2.5%. We present measurements of the number of atoms inside the fiber and of the absorption spectrum, which allows us to determine the OD. Furthermore, we demonstrate the successful implementation of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) which renders the highly opaque medium transparent. This combination of EIT and a tightly confined ultracold medium of extreme OD paves the way towards quantum nonlinear optics with Kerr-type nonlinearities.